NEW DELHI: Centre’s decision to hold talks with farmer groups may not revolve around giving legal guarantee to MSP — a key demand of protesting farmers — but efforts for further strengthening the procurement mechanism to extend its benefit to maximum farmers across the country.
Besides, an inter-ministerial team will try to bring different farmer groups to the table for discussing pros and cons of the newly proposed national framework on agriculture marketing. Centre’s draft framework seeks to establish a “unified national market for agricultural produce” by bringing all states on board, even as the proposal was outrightly rejected by protesting farmers, calling it a reincarnation of the repealed farm laws.
Sources privy to the development said the immediate task before the central team would be to convince farmers to remove road blockades at Shambhu and Khanauri on Punjab-Haryana border and continue talks in the spirit of what was promised in Dec 2021 to end the farmers’ protest.
“The letter written by the then agriculture secretary Sanjay Agarwal to Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) leadership did not promise legal guarantee to procurement of all crops at MSP. It, rather, promised to find a way to ensure MSP for farmers across the country,” said an official.
He said all future dialogues would, therefore, be to find a way to ensure MSP, and it can be done to further strengthen the existing mechanism by expanding its reach and adopting certain reform measures. “We are also waiting for suggestions of the five-member committee, constituted by SC last year to end the deadlock after talking to farmer groups like SKM (non-political) and Kisan Mazdoor Sangh (KMS) who have been protesting at the borders,” he said.
SKM, an umbrella outfit of farmer groups that spearheaded the protest against farm laws in 2020-21, meanwhile, Sunday welcomed the decision of fasting farmer representative Jagjit Singh Dallewal to receive medical aid, and called Centre’s decision to hold talks a “great victory”. The morcha said the growing farmers’ unity and their pan-India struggle forced Centre to hold talks on Feb 14.
